it feels like a miracle.

We are thrilled to share that Mike's surgery date is set and our plane tickets to St. Louis are purchased. We are humbled with gratitude beyond expression that Dr. Bruce Haughey will be performing the surgery to remove Mike's primary cancer mass and the affected lymph nodes using Robotic Laser surgery at Barnes Hospital on Tuesday, April 5th. Dr. Haughey is a world-renowned surgeon and research doctor on staff at the Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri. His credentials are worthy of the most noted medical journals and I feel unworthy to even try to capture his skills & accomplishments in the space of this tiny blog. Having him work on Mike gives us more hope than we can express... As I mentioned before, his research shows that transoral microsurgery is an excellent primary treatment for oropharyngeal cancer. Dr. Haughey will remove the primary mass and lymph nodes affected and if all the margins are negative (meaning all the lymph nodes have stayed within their capsules and did not break out), it could turn out that Mike will not need radiation at all. THAT is our prayer, by the way. We will have more details after we meet with him. HERE IS OUR SCHEDULE: We will fly to St. Louis on Tuesday, March 29th for our pre-surgery consultation. This is where we will learn all the details of the surgery, what Mike's hospital stay and recovery will look like, and what will equip us to share more educated details. We will fly home the next day. We will fly back on Monday, April 4th for Mike's April 5th surgery. He will be in Barnes Hospital for about 3 days. We will "recover" with friends (who happen to live just blocks from both Washington University and Barnes Hospital) over the weekend. Then on Tuesday, April 12th we have a follow-up appointment with Dr. Haughey to have Mike's drains removed and hopefully will get the nod to head back home. Believe it or not, we are incredibly joyful about this journey because we believe that this is the best route to Mike's healing, and we believe that Dr. Haughey is the best surgeon of his kind in the entire world. Really. Please rejoice with us. And please pray for Dr. Haughey and for Mike as their lives prepare to cross.